<!--{
	"Title": "The Go Programming Language Specification",
	"Subtitle": "Language version go1.17 (Oct 15, 2021)",
	"Path": "/ref/spec"
}-->

<h2 id="Introduction">Introduction</h2>

<p>
This is the reference manual for the Go programming language as it was for
language version 1.17, in October 2021, before the introduction of generics.
It is provided for historical interest.

Damien Neil <******@****.***> 1719248507 -0700

Cherry Mui <******@****.***> 1706126447 -0500

Each file is a list of API features, one per line.

go1.txt (and similarly named files) are frozen once a version has been
shipped. Each file adds new lines but does not remove any.

except.txt lists features that may disappear without breaking true
compatibility.

Starting with go1.19.txt, each API feature line must end in "#nnnnn"
giving the GitHub issue number of the proposal issue that accepted

## Ports {#ports}

### Linux {#linux}

As [announced](go1.23#linux) in the Go 1.23 release notes, Go 1.24 requires Linux
kernel version 3.2 or later.

### WebAssembly {#wasm}

## Compiler {#compiler}

## Assembler {#assembler}

## Linker {#linker}

## Bootstrap {#bootstrap}

<!-- go.dev/issue/64751 -->
As mentioned in the [Go 1.22 release notes](/doc/go1.22#bootstrap), Go 1.24 now requires
Go 1.22.6 or later for bootstrap.

      description: |
        What version of Go are you using (`go version`)?

        Note: we only [support](https://go.dev/doc/devel/release#policy) the two most recent major releases.
      placeholder: ex. go version go1.20.7 darwin/arm64
    validations:
      required: true

  - type: textarea
    id: go-env
    attributes:
      label: "Output of `go env` in your module/workspace:"
      placeholder: |
        GO111MODULE=""

  - type: textarea
    id: govulncheck-version
    attributes:
      label: govulncheck version
      description: What version of govulncheck are you using (`govulncheck -version`)?
      placeholder: |
        Go: devel go1.22-0262ea1ff9 Thu Oct 26 18:46:50 2023 +0000
        Scanner: govulncheck@v1.0.2-0.20231108200754-fcf7dff7b242
        DB: https://vuln.go.dev
        DB updated: 2023-11-21 15:39:17 +0000 UTC
    validations:

	// final release step of cat next/*.txt >go1.X.txt.
	// If the files don't end in full lines, the concatenation goes awry.
	if strings.Contains(s, "\r") {
		log.Printf("%s: contains CRLFs", filename)
		exitCode = 1
	}
	if filepath.Base(filename) == "go1.4.txt" {
		// No use for blank lines in api files, except go1.4.txt
		// used them in a reasonable way and we should let it be.

	return schema, schema.err
}

// This unrolling is needed to show to the compiler the exact set of methods
// that can be used on the modelType.
// Prior to go1.22 any use of MethodByName would cause the linker to
// abandon dead code elimination for the entire binary.
// As of go1.22 the compiler supports one special case of a string constant
// being passed to MethodByName. For enterprise customers or those building